THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This week we received encouraging
reports that show our economy is gaining strength. Consumer confidence
hit a two-year high in July. Existing home sales hit an all-time new
record in June. The home ownership rate has hit a new all-time high.
And since last summer, our economy has grown at a rate as fast as any
in nearly 20 years.

These gains in our economy have come at a time when Americans are
benefiting from the full effects of tax relief. I have traveled across
America, meeting small business owners who are investing tax savings
into new equipment, and I have met families who are using tax savings
to pay for their children's needs. All of this added economic activity
is creating opportunity. Since last August, Americans have started
work at more than 1.5 million new jobs, many of them in high-growth,
high-paying industries.

The impact of our growing economy is being felt in Washington,
where estimates of government deficits are shrinking. My
administration now forecasts that the combined deficits in 2004 and
2005 will be about $100 billion less than previously expected, and
because of my policy of strengthening the economy while enforcing
spending discipline in Washington, we remain on pace to reduce the
deficit by half in the next five years.

These are hopeful signs and we must make sure our economy continues
to gain momentum. Families are working hard to make ends meet, and
these families depend on good policies in Washington that promote
growth, new jobs and new opportunities.

Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act, we are improving our public
schools so students learn basic skills like reading, writing, math and
science. We have expanded Pell Grant college scholarships so that more
students can attend college, and we are helping community colleges
train workers for the new high-skill jobs being created in our growing
economy.

We're giving individuals more control over their health care
dollars through newly created health savings accounts, and we must also
address the rising costs of health care by enacting common-sense
reforms in our medical liability system. We must continue to open up
foreign markets to American goods, because on a level playing field,
American workers and farmers and entrepreneurs can compete with
anybody, anytime, anywhere.

We must enact reforms to our legal system, so hardworking
entrepreneurs are not run out of business by frivolous lawsuits. We
must have a national energy policy so we become less dependent on
foreign sources of energy. We must have sensible regulations so that
America's job creators can focus on satisfying their customers and not
bureaucrats in government.

And we must keep taxes low on American families and small
businesses, by making the tax relief we have passed permanent. Thanks
to tax relief enacted since 2001, a family of four earning 40,000 a
year now pays nearly $2,000 less in federal taxes. That is enough to
pay the average home electricity bill for more than a year, or fill up
the gas tank of two cars for an entire year.

To millions of hard-working Americans, tax relief has been the
difference in helping make ends meet. This is a crucial time for our
economy. We have emerged from a period of great challenge. Terrorist
attacks, recession and corporate scandal hurt the wallets of millions
of Americans, but these shocks to our economy did not damage our
spirit. We're a hardworking and resilient nation. Our economy is on a
rising path, and together, we will bring our prosperity to every corner
of America.